5 And now be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither; for God did send me before you to preserve life.

This shouldn't have been in doubt, since this is also the straightforward meaning of the pesukim in parashat Vayeshev:

25. And they sat down to eat a meal, and they lifted their eyes and saw, and behold, a caravan of Ishmaelites was coming from Gilead, and their camels were carrying spices, balm, and lotus, going to take [it] down to Egypt.

Yehuda proposed to sell Yosef to the passing caravan and the brothers then carried it out, pulling Yosef out of the pit and selling him to those same merchants.

What wrongly gives some mefarshim pause is:
a) the ambiguity of actor in וַיִּמְשְׁכוּ וַיַּעֲלוּ אֶת יוֹסֵף מִן הַבּוֹר, such that the ones doing the action could either be the Midianite men who passed by, or the brothers, and
b) the introduction of Midianim, where earlier they were called Yishmaelim.

However, Yishmaelim is used to mean Arabs who travel by caravan, or to a general group which includes Midianites, just like Canaanim elsewhere (such as in Eshet Chayil) means merchant. If you must appeal to the Documentary Hypothesis to explain the shift in terms, go ahead, because at least you will partially arrive at the simple peshat, but I don't think it is necessary. Rather, three groups -- the midrashically inclined, the "deep level" of close reading they imagine to be peshat inclined, and the Documentary Hypothesis proponents looking for 'contradictions' in the Biblical text, all point to this as a contradiction in need of resolution. It is not a contradiction. Don't read so closely, or you will get cross-eyed.

24 And Gideon said unto them: 'I would make a request of you, that ye would give me every man the ear-rings of his spoil.'--For they had golden ear-rings, because they were Ishmaelites.

Rashi resolves as the brothers pulling Yosef out, selling him to the Ishmaelites וַיִּמְשְׁכוּ וַיַּעֲלוּ אֶת יוֹסֵף מִן הַבּוֹר וַיִּמְכְּרוּ אֶת יוֹסֵף לַיִּשְׁמְעֵאלִים; and the Ishmaelites turning around and selling him to the passing Midianites, mentioned as וַיַּעַבְרוּ אֲנָשִׁים מִדְיָנִים סֹחֲרִים. This explains the Midianites (or Midanites) selling Yosef to Potifar, where the pasuk at the end of the perek states וְהַמְּדָנִים מָכְרוּ אֹתוֹ אֶל מִצְרָיִם לְפוֹטִיפַר. Others add add an extra level and have the Midianites selling him to the Midanites, since they make a big deal of what is a small change in spelling of people-name.

The Documentary Hypothesis

Rashbam resolves this as the brothers planning to sell, but being preempted by the Midianites. He is not bothered by the explicit pasuk to the contrary in Vayigash:

"And Midianite men passed by: And while they [the brothers] were sitting to eat bread and were a bit distant from the pit, so that they would not eat upon the blood, and they were waiting for the Ishmaelites they saw. And before the Ishmaelites passed, other Midianite men passed by the way there and so him [Yosef] in the pit, pulled him out, and the Midianites sold him to the Ishmaelites.And there is to say that the brothers did not know this. And even though it is written [in parashat Vayigash] 'that you sold me unto Egypt'. And there is to say that the repercussions of their actions assisted in his sale."

Sure, it is possible; but it seems just so farfetched that I doubt that it is correct. Correct peshat sometimes involves not reading too much into changes in language.

I've heard some more recent theories, from those who imagine themselves to be promoting peshat as a deep reading of the text, while the deep reading really amounts to neo-midrash. Neo-midrash is fine, but these same proponents of deep reading often scorn midrash. They explain that Yosef thought that the brothers sold him to those Midianites who pulled him out of the pit. Meanwhile, either the brothers sold Yosef to the Midianites, at a distance from the pit, or they did not sell Yosef, and Yosef was mistaken in his assertion. This explanation seems characteristic of their psychological approach, in which Biblical characters will assert non-truths, which are true from their perspective, or which serve the needs of the character. For one example of many, Yehuda was caught up in his argument with Yosef, and so he adds details which do not occur in earlier exchanges. Rather than saying that these details were not relevant until now, the proponents of this approach say Yehuda now made them up. Or they might say something to Yaakov about their exchange with the vizier in Egypt which was not mentioned previously, and this detail was invented to further their goals.

While this approach adds a nice texture to the Biblical narrative, and grants us complex and nuanced insights into the souls and personalities of the Biblical characters, I doubt that this often reflects Authorial intent.

8 comments:

Rabbi Waxman,Your post leaves out one of the central points of the 'Brothers-did-not-sell-Yosef' argument: Reuven.

We're told he 'returned' to the pit, rends his garments on seeing Yosef wasn't there, then 'returned' to the brothers and freaks out. Returned from where? Why is he surprised Yosef is not in the pit? While this works perfectly if the brothers were back in Dotan and merely planning to sell Yosef, there is no p'shat way of dealing with this if the brothers actually sold him. One needs to turn to medrashim about Reuven repenting for ma'aseh Bilha or returning to tend to Yaakov to explain the text. Overall, Rashbam's approach definitely needs to deal with the 45:4 issue, but it still seems to me it's closer to p'shat then Rashi's approach, no?

Additionally, it's fairly charitable to call 37:28 an 'ambiguity.' If I was writing about the Yankees, then wrote "the Mets came to town, they played the Reds, and they won 3-1", technically, "they" COULD mean the Yankees, but that's not an ambiguity, that's a tortured reading. The most 'straightforward' meaning of 37:28 is that it's talking about the Midianites the entire time. Theoretically, you could put a period in front of the word 'socharim', and make the first four words an independent clause, but that's a more difficult readong, and, FWIW, it's not borne out by the trop.

One other issue. In Parshat Miketz, the brothers say to each other (explaining their troubles in Eqgypt), that they were guilty, for having seen and heard his troubles but didn't help him. If they, in fact, sold him, shouldn't they have said that was the reason for their troubles?

thanks. you are right, that these are additional inputs into the midrash / DH / close reading.

i left out these points because they weren't directly related to understanding the pesukim in question about Yosef's sale. but they indeed also need to be resolved. personally, i think that once we assert that Midianites = Ishmaelites, with the backup from Sefer Shoftim, everything else falls into place. Bli neder, I'll explain in a follow-up post.

R' Waxman,Looking forward to your follow-up post, but I think the basic Midianite = Ishmaelite equation is a problem, for several issues. (I hope you will address them in the follow-up post).

1) The vast majority of times the word Midianite is used it means someone descended from Midian. The majority of times Ishmaelite is used (which, admittedly, is not so often)it means someone descended from Ishmael. We know this because Midianite is generally used as a member of the nation of Midian (such as Yitro and his family), and the term Ishmaelite is generally used in contradistinction to other nations. (e.g., psalms 83:6, Divrei Hayamim 27:30).I believe Gidon is the only example of the two being used interchangeably. Accordingly, if you want to call using the rare meaning instead of the common meaning a p'shat approach, you would need a good reason for doing so, and I don't see one here, where the common usage makes perfect sense. (Local traders sold a commodity to a caravan headed for foreign shores).

2) It's not clear what "Ishamelite" means in Shoftim exactly (a culture or ethnicity, perhaps?) but it would make sense that the descendants of the 'other' children of Avraham would be all lumped together culturally 800 years after their birth. It's no so convincing that would be true two generations later. Even assuming we're talking the time of Moshe, that's still perhaps three or four centuries later, so a term of art from the time of Gidon may not have applied.

3) If the Ishamelites and Midianites are the same people, then 37:36 needs to be addressed. If Midianites are different from Ishamelites, then we're simply dealing with a manufacturer-wholesaler-retailer-consumer relationship. If they're the same, then the Torah seems to be tossing around different nationalities with no real rhyme or reason.

Just a few of the issues that I hope you'll consider addressing in you upcoming post.

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parshablog is published by (rabbi) josh waxman (joshwaxman [at] yahoo [dot] com), a grad student in Revel, a grad student in a Phd program in computer science at CUNY. i recently received semicha from RIETS. this blog is devoted to parsha as well as whatever it is i am currently learning.